KWF Tagung German Show
The KWF Tagung is a big show, which is to be expected, since forestry is taken very seriously in Germany. It attracted some 43,000 visitors, who came not only to see the various stands – there were over 500 exhibitors – but also to take part in seminars and to take a ride on a minibus through the nearby forests to see various demonstrations. The minibus dropped off visitors at various points of interest – there were 30 demonstrations to choose from. Then it was a matter of boarding another bus to go on to the next site.

The show is organised by the KWF, and takes place every four years. The KWF is a 2000-member organisation, with members ranging from individuals to companies. It receives both state and local government funding, and also derives income from testing and certifying machinery and equipment. A certificate from the KWF is a great advantage in promoting a forestry product in Germany, and the show site was populated with many rows of posters portraying the managing directors of major companies whose products – everything from gloves to purpose-built harvesting equipment – had received KWF accreditation.

There is no similar body to the KWF in the UK. Here one almost gets the impression of a schism in the industry between those who operate the machinery in the forest and those who manage the industry. In Germany, teams of graduates, professors, doctors and engineers expend much energy devising and testing all kinds of heavy-duty equipment in very practical situations.
www.kwf-online.de

TimberPro
American company Timbco was sold to Valmet in 2000, and Valmet’s EX10 tracked harvester stems from the Timbco stable. However, the Wisconsin-based company kept the rights to its rubber-wheeled machines, and founded a new company, TimberPro. They produce a range of
machines that blur the distinction between harvesters and forwarders. The smallest TimberPro forwarder, the 16-tonne capacity TF 810, is capable of carrying a 4000lb (1814kg) harvesting head. The larger TF 830 and 840 machines will carry a Log Max 7000 or similar. A quick-change kit is available that enables a machine to change from a harvester to a forwarder, or vice versa, in around 10 minutes. Often the grapple is carried in the bunks while working as a harvester. TimberPro has also launched a new range of tracked feller bunchers this year after many requests from former Timbco customers.
www.timberpro.com

Windblow
The site on which the KWF Tagung took place was almost changed after much of it was reduced to windblow by Hurricane Kyrill in January 2007. Instead it was decided to make a feature of windblow clearance at the show. As well as the various sites within the showground, which were being cleared by a variety of equipment, windblow featured highly among the demonstrations on the excursion route. On one site polyethylene rope was being demonstrated as an alternative to steel rope. There were also demonstrations of various replanting strategies. Additionally there was a demonstration of measures that can be taken to protect forests from windblow. There was also a one kilometre ‘Kyrill path’ through the windblow site which enabled visitors to see at first hand a wide variety of forestry operations.

Valentini
A high proportion of the timber in Thüringen is growing on ground with gradients of over 30%,
and over 15% is on slopes of over 50%. Because of difficult ground conditions and a lack of old timber, there are often no suitable anchor points for conventional skyline systems, and
this has made harvesting difficult or impossible. This difficulty has been overcome by using a Valentini V550 skyline, which was demonstrated mounted on a Liebherr RB 914 22-tonne excavator. A Valmet 370E head mounted on a Komatsu PC 228 US LC excavator processed the timber on the landing. Valentini 0039 0463 600432 – www.valentini-teleferiche.it

ProSilva
Question: how do you turn an economical four-wheel harvester into an eight-wheel machine?
Answer: replace the wheels with tracks. If they are fixed, rather than floating, then the wheelbase effectively extends to the same length as an eight-wheel machine, giving far greater stability, especially on steep ground. One of the new ProSila harvesters has been working on a 33º (70%) slope. Its wheels have been replaced with a sprocket onto which tracks are fitted. The wheels can be put back on when desired. It takes a day to make the changeover – less when practised at the procedure. The harvester is 2.8 metres wide on 800mm tracks. ProSilva has also recently introduced a forwarder based on the same principle.
Pro Silva 00358 3472 4300 – www.prosilva.fi

Naarva
Stroke heads’ great advantage is the huge delimbing force they bring to bear in operation. The down-side is the slow speed at which they operate. Now we come to one of those good ideas that seem so obvious, that you wish you had thought of yourself. The economically priced Steg Master stroke head, which has been on the market since 1995, has been modified
by using wire ropes to drive two feed-wheels. This makes the new head, the Naarva R25, far faster in operation.

The ropes can be uncoupled if full feed force is required. The patent on the new design is pending. The R25 can run on normal tractor hydraulics, requiring an oil flow of 40-70 litres a
minute at a pressure of 160-200 bar, and is suitable for first thinnings and bioenergy wood harvesting. It weighs 380kg and can be operated by radio control, which dispenses with the need for cables and wires. The R25 is fitted with a guillotine rather than a chainsaw, and has a maximum cutting diameter of 25cm. Nuergy 01506 882720








Ponsse
Ponsse had an eight-wheel Bear harvester on their stand. This has been on test for four months and had been brought in specially from Poland. The concept was originally developed in Finland, and performance on slopes has been much improved over the standard six-wheel version. Customers were most impressed, according to Ponsse, and it seems likely that other
harvesters in the range will follow suit. The Bear was fitted with an H8 head. Also on display was a 10-wheel Wisent forwarder. The 10W, as it is known, has now undergone extensive testing, and is ready for production. The extra wheels bring many advantages when working on boggy ground – not least the fact that it is possible to drive across it with a full load, saving time and fuel on multiple journeys.

The extra wheels are also useful when traversing ditches. The additional two idler wheels come in a kit which also contains a rear frame extension, and are bolted onto the back of the machine. They are slightly smaller than the main wheels, and also positioned slightly higher, so they only become active if the machine starts sinking. They can be added to the machine
when required, and removed when not needed. Another advantage they bring is that the air pressure in the machine’s other rear tyres can be lower, resulting in less strain on the bogie. Special tracks may be fitted that don’t cut peat. The 10-wheel solution will also be offered on the Buffalo and Elk forwarders, and will be available from next autumn. There is a video of the 10W on the Ponsse website, in the forwarders section.
Ponsse UK 01576 203000 – www.ponsse.com

HaVel
Finnish company HaVel was showing off its new hydraulic track tensioner. Operation could not be simpler: simply crank the lever a few times to draw the links in the track together. To release, flick a lever on the base, and the main lever now reduces the pressure instead.
The tensioner fits all types of tracks. HaVel 00358 400 294900
www.havel.fi

Konrad
Austrian skyline specialist, Konrad Forsttechnik, has decided to reinvent the carriage. Instead of being suspended on wire rope, the ‘Pully’ runs along the forest floor. This means a tension of just 2½ to 3 tonnes suffices for the cable along which it runs, instead of 6 tonnes for a normal system. This reduces the strength needed to hold the line at the top of the hill. The system is for downhill use only. In operation the Pully is more like a conventional carriage than might at first be apparent. Whilst the wheels stabilise it, the weight is still supported on the line. The Pully is moved via the rope, not by its wheels, and the position at which the machine holds the line can be adjusted vertically to raise the wheels, enabling them to overcome obstacles.

The Pully is powered by a 100hp Iveco engine, weighs 2.15 tonnes, and is fitted with two 4-tonne winches. It can extract timber at 20-or 30-metre intervals across the hillside. Setup time is just 1½ hours. The Pully was demonstrated in conjunction with Konrad’s mountaineering Highlander harvester, which processed the timber at the bottom of the hill using a Woody head. Konrad Forsttechnik 0043 (0)4354 2432 – www.forsttechnik.at

Rottne
Rottne had an F10 forwarder at the show. This replaces the F9. Everything behind the centre joint remains as it was on the F9, but in front the whole framework is different because of the new cab, and there is a new engine, a 116kW/156hp John Deere 4045 HF485 4.5-litre Tier 3 common rail. The new cab, which it shares with the equally new F18, is the major new feature. This will be on the rest of the Rottne forwarders within eight to ten months. It offers excellent visibility, especially over the wheels, since the windows go down so low, and there is room for most operators to stand up straight – anyone up to six foot two, anyway.

Comfort in the cab is greatly enhanced by an optional computer-controlled gas/hydraulic damping system. This has reduced whole-body vibrations in the vertical plane by 40%. Rottne has done away with the steering wheel. When on the road, steering is done by moving a lever – forwards for left, backwards for right. This is a system used on the Blondin
in the past. Off-road steering is by means of a small lever on the lever panel. One welcome effect of the removal of the steering wheel is that it makes it far easier to reduce noise levels, which have fallen from 75dB to 69.

The entire electrical system operates over a CANbus system with a Dasa D5 machine control system. All information and settings are communicated via a touch screen.
Rottne UK 01556 612233

Antique Roadshow
Amidst all the latest technology at the show, this ancient saw was to be found. The Warner log saw was manufactured from 1918 to 1927 in Ottawa, Kansas. It made 350 cutting movements a minute, powered by a single-cylinder, 4hp water-cooled
engine.

Gremo
Gremo had their new 1050F forwarder on display. This supersedes the 950F, which for a decade was market leader in its class in Sweden. This is a slightly heavier machine at 10.5 tonnes, and has a 164hp 4.5-litre 4-cylinder Cummins QSB common rail, tier 3 compliant turbo
intercooler engine. This produces a torque of over 600Nm between 1420 and 1800 rpm. The payload of 10.5 tonnes is a .5 tonne increase over the 950F. The crane is a Loglift 59F with a reach of 7.2 metres and a gross lifting moment of 78kNm. Gremo 0046 (0)346 60515

GreenMech
One of the British faces at the show belonged to Tony Turner of GreenMech. He was on the Cat Rental stand. There are a lot of GreenMech chippers clearing railway embankments in Germany. Tony Turner described how this came to pass. Apparently he and two other purveyors of tracked chippers were invited to demonstrate on a typical site. The other two makes went first, and both of them made long presentations in German, describing the capability of their machines. Both chippers then crawled down the embankment to start work, but were unable to cope with the steep slope. One of them, in fact, needed to be rescued.
When his turn came, Tony Turner made the briefest of introductions, explaining that, since he did not speak German, he would content himself with showing what his machine could do. The SafeTrak system coped admirably with the gradient and the demonstration passed off without a hitch. Needless to say, GreenMech got the contract.
GreenMech 01789 400044

Distein
There was a naked woman at the show this year – well, naked apart from a thong and a coat of paint. She was on the Distein stand, who are manufacturers of marking paint. She also went walkabout through the showground, and the reaction this provoked in the young men wandering around the show was almost as entertaining as the young lady herself. She was not in the slightest bit shy.

It is not known what effect, if any, all this had on sales of marker paint. Also unclear is whether the young lady will put in an appearance on the company’s stand at this year’s APF show in September, where we all hope the weather will be warm and sunny.
Distein 0049 (0)6266 75 224

HSM
There were many interesting demonstrations to be seen on the excursions. These were given, not by the manufacturers of the various products on display, but by independent experts chosen by the KWF. HSM is developing a hardwood head, which was on display at one of the points on the circuit. Still at the prototype stage, the CTL 40 HW has a felling diameter of 430mm and can delimb from 580mm right down to 60mm. Its compact form, and the fact that it has just two lower knives and one movable upper knife, suit it to crooked stems. Also the saw has been designed in such a way that the chain is less likely to be dislodged from the guide bar than on conventional heads.

The head achieves a 10% advantage over conventional heads in hardwood stands, and, compared to motor manual harvesting, reduces production time by about 80%. The head has given good results on oak, beech, hornbeam and chestnut, as well as with multiple stems in France and in dense stands of robinia in Hungary.
HSM 0049 (0)7944 91910 – www.hsm-forstmaschinen.de

Growi
Growi were showing off their new bundle-saw system for lengths of wood up to a metre. The system can be stationary or mobile, as demonstrated at the show. Having split and then tightly bound the lengths of timber with reusable tape in a purpose-built cage, the bundle is lifted into a cutting chamber. Here a 1.5 metre Stihl guide bar carrying a 3/8” chain, powered by an 11kW electric motor, is used to cut the bundle at preset points. Having done this, the whole chamber is lifted by two hydraulic cylinders to dump the firewood where required.
As can be seen from the pictures, it is certainly a high output method!
Growi 0049 (0)8377 619 – www.growi-maschinenbau.de

Measurements through the head
The vexed question of payments based on harvesting head measurements is being addressed by the KWF in an effort to devise a transparent and trustworthy method that will be accepted by all parties. The system works by using the manual measurement of a small number of control stems, which are chosen at random by the harvester’s computer. All main harvester computer systems support this system. The operator is informed when the next log is to be chosen as a control stem, and can override the choice if the log concerned is not typical. If this is done, a new stem will be chosen in a reduced timescale.

Having harvested the stem, the operator gets out and measures its length and diameter with callipers. He does not see the full data regarding the log, but if there is any great discrepancy between his manual and the computer’s automatic measurement, recalibration of the head will be suggested. Both sets of data – the head and the calliper measurements – can then be fed into a website. Any undue variance between the two measuring systems will be highlighted, and any attempt to enter bogus data is easily detected. To get accurate results, it is vital that the operator uses the callipers correctly, with regard to such details as missing bark or knots.

Stehr
Stehr were showing off an economical way of maintaining gravel roads. They gave demonstrations at regular intervals of their gravel road finisher. This can be used to rip up a road, potholes and all, using a number of tines, smoothing the surface with a blade. The whole process was quite fast – the tractor was moving at 15 to 20 kilometres an hour. The road finisher was attached to the back of a Fendt 933 tractor at the show, and the road was then compacted using four plates on the front of the tractor. Reeds 01380 816516